A Boy Named Sue

My high school Latin class (being a Chicago boy in a public high school as the "black power" kids came of age....)......had a "Latrina" the first day of Latin II.

The flamingly gay 70-something year old teacher who let us smoke along with him once a period spit out his coffee taking roll and took an IMMEDIATE smoke break.

There weren't many students, so all the Latin classes were held simultaneously...and the first day vocab for "Latrina" was...latrina, latrinae, feminine.....toilet.

She didn't make it two weeks, and the teacher stopped taking audible roll.

Should add that same teacher ran the "Latin club" and showed ... "Caligula" on his personal VHS copy..in class.  Yes, that "Caligula."

I can verify that it's a bad idea giving your son a girls name. My parents meant no harm, their timing was just off. After all, there was the famous baseball player from a decade earlier, Robin Roberts whom no one in my grade school had ever heard of. There was Batman's sidekick Robin but I can't number the times a classmate sang, "Jingle Bells, shotgun shells, Robin laid an egg" for my amusement and pleasure. There was Robin Hood, but he was another fictional character. There were two other "Robyns" in my 5th grade class, Robyn with a "Y" as was the fashion in those days to distinguish the boy Robins from the girls. But in 1956 no one was naming their boys Robin apparently. My teacher had the brilliant idea of calling the girls Robyn 1 and Robyn 2 and making me go my my middle name "Eugene" which was the only name in the world I considered worse than Robin. So for one year I was Eugene, even to a cousin who was in my class. Anytime I met a kid and told them my name, they would inform me that I have a girls name, the equivalent of telling a man he has a bald spot on the back of his head. I went through my youth vowing to change my name to Bill or George, anything but Sue as soon as I turned eighteen. When I was twenty-five I momentarily won first place in a 10K race because I crossed the finish line just ahead of the actual first place winner in the women's division. I could tell stories like this all day long. Most of my mail came addressed Ms Robin House. I forgot to mention that thanks to my last name I also got called, Bird House from time to time. I've been going to the same church for over thirteen years and everyone calls my wife "Robin", even the pastor's wife. Many people even today consider Robin as an unusual name for a man. When they're socially savvy enough to comment on it I've long given up on mentioning Robin Williams, Robin Trower, Robin Leach, Robin Gibb, or Robin anyone else because they usually say, "Oh. I never thought of that!" Now I'm sixty-seven years old and not bothered by it, but I have to say' it's been a very inconvenient name to carry through life. Maybe I'll change my name legally to Apple.